


Safety

by raregoose



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/M, Internal Monologue, No Dialogue, Power Dynamics, baavira week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-15 00:59:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3432209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raregoose/pseuds/raregoose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kuvira, more than anything, desires safety. She acutely feels the power Baatar holds over her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safety

She regarded him with her icy distance in public. There was a certain safety in knowing that there was always a barrier, whether it be the ubiquitous curtain of the air in public appearances as he stood behind her, or the sheath of her gloves if there were to be a casual brushing of fingertips between them. She was safe behind her shield of distance, protected from the hurt he could inflict.

He didn’t know the power he held over her. She understood that it was a mutual power, but he never could truly comprehend how easily he could bend her under his influence and snap her faster than she bent the metal she devoted her life to commanding. His ability to leave her at any time, to decide on his own that he belonged back in Zaofu if he wanted or leave her for a better woman, brought her to her knees. She needed him just as much as the infrastructure of the nation they had created together did, and she needed even more every day. In public, she pulled on her gloves to protect herself, for her own sanity.

And yet, in private, all thoughts of power and protection dissolved like the taste of him on her tongue. In private, she took off her gloves for him. In private, she unknotted her hair, first the wound bun at the base of her neck and then the front half that was pulled in the two braids along her hairline and down to her nape. In public, their skin would never meet, but in private, she could let the electricity pass between them without fear, caressing his arm with her ungloved fingers.

She could wake entwined in him, breathing in time as her head rose and fell with the motion of his chest, and feel entirely safe. She could let him touch her the way no one else did, his fingers playing her like strings, his mouth leaving bruises along the curve of her breast and up her neck, leaving a mural for just the two of them to admire, his hand leaving a reassuring squeeze on her knee in the mornings she didn’t want to rise, hoping that the day would give her a reprieve for once.

In this way he held his undeniable power over her. Nobody could touch her but him. She sacrificed all of herself to him every moment he placed a single hand on her skin. He had the power to reject her, turn his back on him the way his mother had to them, or her own parents had when she was eight and the last she saw of them was their hunched backs and dirty hair slipping away.

But, in the end, despite everything, she trusted him to hold his power without dropping it and crushing her in the process. They could communicate in public with a single glance, knowing exactly what the other meant in a flutter of lashes or motion of an eyebrow. He never liked displays of affection anyway, reminding him too much of the parents that loved each other but not him, never him.

In private, he gave her his ring, a promise and a secret that they shared, that no bandits or rebels could take away. In public, she gave the people a short announcement and a few happy photographs, but the slim band stayed under her glove.

It was safer, that way.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, if you made it all the way through :D im gonna post all my baavira week stuff, even though im ridiculously late!! i hope you liked it, i have a ton of headcanons and stuff about the two of them and im super happy i even get to share my writing with other people at all. like always, im on tumblr at roxymir.tumblr.com <3


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